Erik ten Hag will not make the same mistake Manchester United made last time at Liverpool

The last time Manchester United were at Anfield in April, it was a question of how many. How many goals would Liverpool win by? The answer was four.

The question now posed of United is how many trophies could they win. As remote as the chances of a clean sweep are, the answer is the same: four.

It is 319 days since Liverpool walloped United 4-0. That night, Ralf Rangnick opined United may require 10 new signings. Two days later, he likened the squad reconstruction to open-heart surgery. Not that you would have found a heart in last season's squad.

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Erik ten Hag has only signed one player fewer than the 10 Rangnick recommended, albeit four have been on loan and Martin Dubravka's peculiar spell ended prematurely on New Year's Day.

Ten Hag and Rangnick did not sing from the same hymnsheet on recruitment, so Rangnick's consultancy contract was shredded before it became active, only six days into Ten Hag's official tenure.

All United fans miss from Rangnick are his press conferences that were as incisive as a surgeon's scalpel. There were gegenpress conferences but not much pressing from the players. Ten Hag has elicited pressing from a 30-year-old Dutch Chris Wood.

Few players highlight Ten Hag's coaching clout more than Wout Weghorst. Weghorst has not fulfilled the role he was bought for and he has one goal in 13 starts, a dire record comparable with Garry Birtles and Diego Forlan.

So Ten Hag has played on the positives of Weghorst's interplay and instructed him to drop deep, allowing faster forwards to run ahead of him. It procured Marcus Rashford's contest-killing goal in the League Cup final.

Ten Hag credited Weghorst with a role in all three of